The evolution of HOPE VI as a development program

From Despair to Hope: Hope VI and the New Promise of Public Housing in America's Cities

Volumn , Issue , 2009, Pages 31-47

  Baron, Richard D ^a  

^a INDETEC International   (United States)

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EID: 79960837009     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: None     Document Type: Chapter

References (21)

1. National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing, Final Report (Government Printing Office, August 1992), pp. 15-21.
2. Michael F. Schubert and Alison Thresher, "Lessons from the Field: Three Case Studies of Mixed-Income Housing Development", Great Cities Institute, College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, University of Illinois at Chicago, April 1996, pp. 8-13;
3. Urban Land Institute, ULI Development Case Studies/King's Lynne (http://casestudies.uli.org/Profile.aspx?j=8093&p=5&c=22 [November 7, 2008]).
4. Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1977), p. 9.
5. Project-based Section 8 contracts were essentially a pledge attached to certain units that those units would be leased only to certain low-income families for a set number of years and that the federal government would pay the landlord the difference between what the tenants paid-generally 30 percent of their income- and the market rent. The guaranteed income from the federal rent subsidies attached to the Section 8 units combined with the projected income from the rent or sale of the market units enabled McCormack Baron to obtain construction loans and, ultimately, mortgages on such properties. Congress eliminated new funding under the Section 8 new construction and substantial rehabilitation program in 1983 and enacted the LIHTC program in 1986. For a fact sheet on the tax credit program, see www.ncsha.org/uploads/20040311-HC- factsheet.pdf.
6. Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act, P. L. 101-625.
7. Lora Engdahl, interview with Michael Reardon, partner, Nixon Peabody LLC, January 17, 2008.
8. Nelson A. Diaz, general counsel, Department of Housing and Urban Development, "Use of Public Housing Funds to Leverage Private Financing", memorandum to Joseph Shuldiner, assistant secretary for public and Indian housing, April 8, 1994. The memorandum mentions specific proposals from the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority and McCormack Baron & Associates on behalf of the St. Louis Housing Authority as well as "other similar proposals." The memorandum is reprinted in Megan Glasheen and Julie McGovern, "Mixed-Finance Development: Privatizing Public Housing through Public/Private Partnerships", in Privatizing Governmental Functions, edited by Deborah Ballati (New York: Law Journal Seminars Press, April 2001), pp. 9-57-9-63.
9. Engdahl, interview with Reardon, January 17, 2008;
10. Chester Hartman, "Shelterforce Interview: Joseph Shuldiner, Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing", Shelterforce 77 (September-October 1994).
11. The regulations governing the development of new public housing include "site and neighborhood standards" that outline a narrow set of circumstances under which public housing can be built in high-poverty, high-minority areas. These standards are published in the annually updated Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), title 24, §941. 202, which can be found online at the Government Printing Office website (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/ index.html). Of course, many existing distressed public housing complexes were located in such neighborhoods. An interim rule on mixed financing published in May 1996 (see note 24 below) essentially exempted mixed-finance redevelopment projects from the standards by clarifying that public housing units built to replace public housing units demolished as part of a mixedfinance project can be built on the original site or in the same neighborhood if the number of new units is significantly less than the number of units demolished.
12. Engdahl, interview with Reardon, January 17, 2008.
13. The rule, which is known as the mixed-finance rule, was published in the Federal Register on May 2, 1996, adding a new subpart F to title 24, part 941, of the Code of Federal Regulations.
14. See "Public/Private Partnerships for the Mixed-Finance Development of Public Housing", 24 CFR §941.600.
15. A 2004 report from the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution explains how the FHA insurance piece of the funding package was used to encourage private lending in investment-starved neighborhoods: "The goal was to make HOPE VI a flexible source of capital, thereby providing a catalyst for other investment in neighborhoods that had been redlined by conventional financial institutions." See Susan J. Popkin and others, "A Decade of HOPE VI: Research Findings and Policy Challenges" (Washington: Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, May 2004), p. 17. On page 14 of the report, the authors say that HUD began to encourage mixed-finance strategies with the 1996 NOFA.
16. HUD created a template term sheet for public housing authorities to complete when making an initial request for HUD's investment in a mixed-finance transaction. The term sheet enables PHAs to provide consistent and relevant information early on to speed the negotiations. See "Project Review Protocol", U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, April 9, 2003 (http://fhasecure.gov/offices/pih/programs/ph/hope6/mfph/project-review-panel. pdf). Ozdinec, who is mentioned in chapter 1 in connection with early HOPE VI implementation, is a career civil servant who was the program manager for URD/HOPE VI when it first began and who remained with the program until May 2005.
17. "Improvements to Public Housing", statement of Orlando J. Cabrera, assistant secretary of public and Indian housing, Department of Housing and Urban Development, to Committee on House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, CQ Congressional Testimony, June 21, 2007.
18. A number of school reform efforts tied to mixed-income redevelopment are profiled in a report from Urban Strategies Inc., a nonprofit community-building partner of McCormack Baron Salazar. See Sandra M. Moore and Susan K. Glassman, "The Neighborhood and Its School in Community Revitalization: Tools for Developers of Mixed-Income Housing Communities", Urban Strategies.
19. "Industry Suggests Ideas for Change", Affordable Housing Finance, March 2008.
20. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act (P. L. 110-289), enacted in July 2008, boosted the allocation of credits to the states for 2008 and 2009, but the allocations revert to prior amounts after 2009.
21. From "Changes Affecting Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and Rehabilitation Tax Credits Resulting from H. R. 3221", Novogradac & Company LLP (www.novoco.com/low-income-housing/legislation/2008/hr-3221-novoco- summary.pdf [December 1, 2008]).